


Walking Wounded

by misura



Series: Zhaarnak/Prescott ficlets [4]
Category: Starfire Series - Various Authors
Genre: Book: The Shiva Option, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 06:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Zhaarnak observes Prescott grieving. Or not grieving, rather.





	Walking Wounded

The truth was that neither of them had time for grief. Grief was a luxury, and not one they could afford.

Zhaarnak knew this. He knew that according to the Warrior's Way, the best remedy for grief was revenge - and he also knew that Prescott had fully embraced this idea, throwing himself into his work with a passion that fell little short of obsession.

Yet Prescott's skills and abilities did not suffer. If anything, his mind seemed even sharper now than it had already been, as if Andrew Prescott's death had cleared away something that had held him back before, leaving Prescott's vision clearly focused on achieving his objectives.

_So why then do I feel this unease?_

Zhaarnak should be relieved. Prescott had been close to his brother - _his _other_ brother,_ Zhaarnak amended. In a way, Zhaarnak too had lost a brother, though he did not deceive himself into thinking he experienced even a hundredth of the grief Prescott felt.

Prescott might have broken at the news. He might have taken a few weeks of leave. Such things happened even in the Khanate, though of course anyone who accepted such leave would be considered weak and too fragile to hold a position of any real power afterwards.

One could not in good conscience put the lives of one's soldiers in the hands of someone who lacked the emotional strength to accept that in any war, there would be casualties.

_Even so, we still grieve._ Perhaps, Zhaarnak thought, it was as simple as that. Losses, especially ones as personal as Prescott's had been, were to be mourned. They _deserved_ to be mourned.

The Warrior's Way did not seek to prohibit grief; it merely proscribed that a warrior not let himself be consumed by it, reduced to helplessness by the pain of his loss.

Prescott, by contrast, was like a man who had lost a limb but refused to pause and acknowledge the wound. He did not deny that Andrew Prescott had died; he only denied that what he felt was not merely a thirst for revenge that Zhaarnak suspected to be unquenchable, but grief as well.

Prescott had suffered a loss. He had every right to mourn. Zhaarnak would have felt pleased and honored to offer what comfort he might, to offer Prescott his strength to lean on. That was what _vilkshatha_ brothers did for one another. Had the loss been Zhaarnak's, he liked to believe he would not have scrupled to make use of Prescott in such a manner, to show his _vilkshatha_ brother the grief he could not show those under his command, lest they lose their confidence in him.

Prescott showed nothing but a determination to kill as many Bugs as possible.

A commendable strategic goal which nobody found fault with, least of all Zhaarnak. _And yet, I am uneasy. I worry._ It was possible, of course, that Prescott was simply stronger than Zhaarnak thought, that he did not lean on Zhaarnak because he did not need to. That was an option.

Zhaarnak would have no cause for worry if that was the case. He would also not know Prescott nearly as well as he thought he had gotten to know Prescott over these past years.

_Is this mere pride?_ Zhaarnak wondered. _A reluctance to accept my own ignorance? My own limitations? Am I still unable to accept that a human might be my superior in some way?_ Had any other human been concerned, he might have given the option some real thought. Since it was Prescott, he felt little compunction in discarding the idea out of hand.

_A wound left untreated for too long may heal on its own. Or it may fester and kill you._ Zhaarnak sighed, his ears flattening. _I have already lost one brother. I refuse to stand by and risk losing another._

The resolve should have strengthened him. Instead, his legs felt like lead as he went to tell a man that merely ignoring an injury would not suffice to stop the bleeding.


End file.
